Mammoth Tooth

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This remarkable mammoth tooth was unearthed from a lake within Bering Land Bridge National Preserve, where it lay just 50 meters away from a cluster of well-preserved bones, including an intact humerus and ulna from the left side of the animal. The proximity of these fossils suggests they may have belonged to a single specimen, representing a nearly complete mammoth skeleton. A small circular hole seen adjacent to the sample number was where bone collagen was extracted for radiocarbon dating. Radiocarbon analysis revealed that the mammoth tooth dates back to 12,330 +/- 50 years before present, or between 14,530 and 14,060 calendar years ago. This timeframe corresponds to the end of the Pleistocene epoch (2.6-0.01 million years ago), a period characterized by widespread glaciation across much of the world, except for western Alaska and Siberia, which were connected by an ice-free steppe called Beringia. The tooth's longest axis measures approximately 22 cm.